Tagged: yaoi

Still out on my crazy adventure. A rather bold party mix of manga this week, FP faithful, and certainly something for everyone! There’s some shoujo, some shounen, and I decent peppering of yaoi on top! In partiuclar, there are two relatively known titles coming out this week that don’t seem to get the limelight they deserve, so here I am to shine it upon them!

First, there’s a new volume of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, which is a rather clever black comedy that pokes fun at Japanese society, language, and everything in between! Meet Nozumu Itoshiki, who begins his first day as a new teacher underneath a sakura tree, attempting to hang himself. He’s stopped by a girl who turns out to be one of his future students, just one of many who seem to suffer from a myriad of specific and bizarre problems.

Perhaps the amusement in Zetsubou Sensei lies in one’s knowledge of Japanese culture, thus alienating people who aren’t… well… Japanese. It’s not enough to just be up on your anime to get the full scope of what this particular series encompasses, since a lot of the humour is really based on understanding the structure of Japanese language, with things that don’t always carry over into a perfect English translation. Still, there’s merit in being forced to learn more about real Japanese culture through such satire, and if anything, the art is really fun to look at. There is a great aesthetic of incredible pattern and restful, white space, yet another Japanese-ism we might not appreciate so much as Americans. (In Japan, many things are crafted to focus on the singular beauty of a thing, whereas the American aesthetic is that more is more.) Anyway, it’s a pretty fun romp if you want something a bit brainier to read.

The other title that comes out this week that is worth checking out is Eden: It’s An Endless World! If you like beautiful artwork and those after-the-apocalypse sort of stories, this is one you should definitely pick up. After a killer virus has wiped out a good portion of mankind, the world’s future is up in the air. There is political unrest everywhere, and young Elijah is caught up in the middle of it all. If you enjoyed the dystopian mess that occurs in the second half of the Akira manga, then you’ll find a lot of similarities. But definitely in a good way!! What’s also cool about Eden is that it has a kind of gnostic undertone to it, so people who love symbolism will have a lot to soak in.

Anyway, I hope these are fun new old titles for you to check out! It always makes me happy to hear that people are getting up on their anime roots. No sense in being into something if you’re only going to do it halfway, I say!

Suffice it to say that there is a new TENGEN TOPPEN GURREN LAGANN book out this week and I’m super-dooper excited about it! Why, you may ask? Well, obviously because TTGL is freaking awesome, and also because its manga adaptation, amazingly enough, doesn’t suck chunks, as most adaptations of pretty much anything tend to do. Really, that’s probably just an aspect of being made by GAINAX, as TTGL is one of the latest offerings from the studio of Evangelion and FLCL fame. For reasons that will quickly become obvious the second you start watching it, TTGL quickly moved into the winner’s circle of insta-classics, and definitely helped revitalize the then-sagging anime industry. Oh, what’s that? I’m sorry, you want me to tell you the reasons that TTGL is so great before you start it? What, you think my word isn’t good enough to send you dashing to the shelves? You worry you might be wasting your time with a show you might not like? Oh, ye of little faith, what am I going to do with you?

Well, reason number one is pretty obvious: hot, curvy babes in booty shorts and tiny tops that are bursting with the famous GAINAX jiggle. Also the fact that Kamina, King of the Bros (TM), is probably the coolest character to star in a show since Spike Spiegal, and that’s no lie. Considering that he’s really only there for the first eight episodes or so before making a dramatic exit, he still manages to dominate the TTGL fanbase, perhaps even more so than his red-haired, bikini-top wearing sidekick, Yoko. And she has boobs, man. BOOBS. I mean, TTGL is probably about the manliest, chest-bumpingest anime ever, so what else would you expect, I suppose. Continue reading →

If there’s one thing that manga does best, it’s elegance. Whether it’s a high school romance or a rugged ninja fight, there is a certain grace to the style that gives even the grittiest stories a certain beauty. Fine examples of such can be found amongst this week’s selection of manga, most of which seem to be of the yakuza nature. Maybe it’s because the yakuza is still associated with a lot of the old ideals of Japan, left over from the Edo Period and the age of samurai, but there is always a certain mystique about the super-secretive underbelly of Japanese society. Continue reading →

Hark! Dost thou hear the blessing of the manga gods as they shower a whopping TWENTY-EIGHT books upon our nerdy heads this week? Listen harder, then, BECAUSE IT’S HAPPENING.

Seriously, there are almost too many books to even know where to start, so I’ll go for the jugular and talk about one of my not-so-secret favourite things: YAOI. Might as well, since there are five whole books of this sordid ilk coming to us and inquiring minds want (need) to know, especially after such a dry season.

The first title to do a happy little dance for is the long-anticipated Volume 3 of Finder, which is the wonderfully dirty tale of Akihito, a freelance photographer who happens to take some incriminating pictures of the wrong scoop! With evidence of some of the Yakuza’s underworld dealings on film, Akihito is kidnapped by mobster, Asami, who then takes him as his personal pet. I tend to be a real jerk about art, especially when it comes to shoujo and yaoi manga, but I can safely tell you that Finder is far from the typical, almost lazy lackluster that can be found in those genres. Also, unlike a lot of yaoi manga, Finder doesn’t pull its punches with the sexy stuff: it’s definitely not for the underaged. It’s also got a decently convoluted, dark plot to make it more than just a pornographic indulgence, so if you’ve yet to add it to your yaoi library, here’s your chance to fix that! Continue reading →

This week’s manga selection is a great stroll through the various genres that are near and dear to the otaku’s heart. From the super awesome second Black Collector’s Edition of Death Note (which collects volumes 3 and 4) to volume 4 of Ichiroh, you can bet your Pocky that there’s a lot of variety to choose from this week.

There are quite a few sensual books coming out, from the final volume of Sundome, to the sexy vampires of Dance In The Vampire Bund, to a fair amount of yaoi, which is always sexy to some degree. So let us back up for a second to Sundome by Kazuto Okada, the most underrated popular series in the store. This series is definitely rated R since it starts with a boy and a girl in high school, and the girl basically takes a dominatrix role in the boys life, controlling him and teasing him with out ever any follow through. In the final volume Kurumi’s frequent absences stretch into weeks, Hideo goes to her apartment to check on her, only to find the object of his shameless passion curled up and in tears. Hideo is only too happy to comfort Kurumi however he can, but even his fond caresses cannot heal the illness that is slowly stealing her away.

Don’t get me wrong, not everything this week is sexy, there are a few things on the complete opposite end of that spectrum. For instance, Yotsuba &! Volume 9 finally came out. You can’t get more non-sexual than a super cutesy green haired little girl going on adventures intent on enjoying all the little things in life that we take for granted. So you know you know how Ena has a stuffed bear named Juliet? She’s so pretty, and Ena makes dresses for her and stuff and Yotsuba really wants one too! So daddy took Yotsuba to the bear store! They have big bears and little bears, and all kinds of bears! You have to hug’em to find out which one’s the bestest! But they’re all so cute! Does Yotsuba really have to pick just one? Yeah, cutesy. Continue reading →

I know the title this week is a little dramatic, but there is practically nothing coming out this week. I know there was that one week a little while ago that absolutely nothing came out, but this is pretty damn close. That’s right, only five titles grace us with their presence this week, and two of them are yaoi books. Two other books are Viz books, and at least these two are long awaited releases. One of which is Takehiko Inoue’s Real Volume 9, and the other is Saturn Apartments Volume 2. So at least there are a couple things to look forward to, but lets be real, that is not enough to base this entire article on. Soooooo, time for a review week! The lucky title to earn this week’s spotlight is a book I never mentioned before, and came in under the radar a few weeks back called Tenken by Yumiko Shirai.

So apparently Tenken won the Japan Media Festival Arts Award and is coming to us via a small publisher called One Peace Books. I’ll let you bask in that for a second….okay, moving on. The book starts out telling the story of young Susano, the brother of Amaterasu. He was walking down a river and comes across an old couple who used to have many daughters, but a giant demon with 8 serpent heads comes every year and takes one of their daughters away, now they only have one left. Susano promises to save them and the daughter if they promise to make her his bride. They agree, so he get 8 vats of liquor, and 8 gates to place in front of the vats. When the serpent comes, it drinks the liquor, and passes out with each head in a gate. Susano then cuts off each head and wins. Now this is all on the intro page before you get into the actual manga. Continue reading →

If anyone has met me in the last 6 months you may be aware that I adore Florence & The Machine, and you may recognize the title of this week’s article as not just a timeless phrase, but the title of their current hit, (used in lots of movies and TV shows and commercials for such). However, that’s not really the reason for using the term as the title of this week’s anime column. The truth is the title comes from the saying “The dog days are over” which refers to the hot dreary uneventful days of summer coming to an end. The beginning of Autumn spurns the coming of school, and cooler weather, where we lose the lethargy and become busy anew. The origin of the “dog days” comes from those summer months that are ruled by Sirius (derived from the Greek for Scorcher) the dog-star which represents heat and fire. The end of the Dog Days also has a metaphorical significance, meaning that your stagnant life has come to an end, and revolution is coming. Nothing ever changes without the original form first “burning up”, like a phoenix. This concludes the educational portion of this week’s manga new article.

Now that you’ve learned something new, welcome to another full release week in September. Ironically, (for reasons I’ll leave to my older readers), this week also sees a lot of yaoi titles coming out. At the very least there are 11 yaoi titles(and a couple which may or may not be considered yaoi), many of which are coming at us from Digital Manga Publishing (as either June Press or Doki Doki). One of the biggest news releases for our yaoi titles is that June finally has the rights and releases the first book in the Finder Series: Target In The Finder, and even though this one might cost a bit more than most June books, it’s still less than when it was when it was being published by CPM. And I’m sure the fans of this series are thrilled to have it back, considering CPM went down before they had the chance to finish printing it. Also, for some reason they did manage to print the third book, but it never made wide distribution and was only available on, like, Amazon.com for an exorbitant amount of money. But I digress. Continue reading →

I know it’s a gloomy week so far, and no one really wants to go out in this weather, but if there was ever an excuse to get your feet damp and squishy I believe good books are it, and this week we have some good books. Let’s start with the 8th and final volume of Pluto, the Urasawa X Tezuka collaboration event. When we last left off in Volume 7 Photon just got obliterated, and his hands survived just long enough to protect the child Wassily and the guard-bot from the explosive force. And then Atom finally wakes up, but with 6 billlion personalities flowing through his brain, will he be the same awesome robot from before he was torn to shreds? THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING ME! I’m just glad that I waited for the first 7 books to come out before I started reading it, because I couldn’t imagine having to wait all that time between each release. PS: If you haven’t started reading Pluto already, what is wrong with you?

Also coming out this week is Osamu Tezuka‘s Black Jack Volume 10. In this volume there’s a mummy, a bike race, a dolphin, and then Black Jack hits a bar. But after all that, who wouldn’t? For anyone still unfamiliar with this classic Black Jack is a mysterious and charismatic young genius surgeon who travels the world performing amazing and impossible medical feats. Though a trained physician, he refuses to accept a medical license. This leads Black Jack to occasional run-ins with the authorities, as well as from gangsters and criminals who approach him for illegal operations. Because he keeps his true motives secret, his ethics are perceived as questionable and he is considered a selfish, uncaring devil. Continue reading →

Anyone out there read the series “Blame”? Or subsequently, “Noise”? Of course you have, that was rhetorical. They’re only the best dark future cyber-punk series to come out since Ghost in The Shell. Does anyone else remember a Marvel Comics mini-series called “Wolverine: Snikt!“? In case you never got around to reading it, it was wolverine in a dark alternate future fighting giant murderous robots of some kind. What’s that got to do with anything? Well obviously the common thread is Tsutomu Nihei. Nihei is the new master of robo-apocalyptic futures and how to kick ass in them. “What’s this all about?”, you say? Nihei’s new series is finally getting released and it’s called BioMega. Continue reading →

This is definitely the week that has something for everyone. It’s not quite as massive a release list as last week, but then, that was the first week of the month and we are inching ever closer to the holidays. We’re seeing a lot of yaoi, shojo books, shonen series, books for grown ups and books for little kids.

I feel like I don’t write often enough to the new manga generation, all the kids who fall under the “All Ages” rating category (because books for 10 year-olds are still too mature for you guys). So let’s start with Bakugan! Oh yeah, Bakugan Battle Brawlers Volume 3 is here this week. Masquerade and Rikimaru take on Dan and Drago in an amazing battle, and what’s worse is that Dan and Drago can’t agree on how to battle. This is going to be one tough battle. And for those kids out there who aren’t into battling monsters there is a new book this week called Swans In Space by Lun Lun Yamamoto, and here’s the best part, it’s in full color! join two new space patrol recruits and their fluffy blue alien guide as they help people across the galaxy! Continue reading →